That stung. Maya could see it in Cara’s eyes. The brief hesitation, like a tiny crack had opened up. She was probably remembering how she’d been the one to point out that Simon had a crush on Maya. How she’d encouraged them. How she’d clapped her hands and laughed at Maya’s blushing admission of her first kiss …
“You knew Simon,” Maya whispered, trying to wedge the crack wider. “He was sweet and he was good and he didn’t deserve to die like that. No one deserves to die like that.”
Cara’s serenity faltered. Maya could see her desperate need to believe in the world Richter had built for her battling the memories of their friendship. For one heartbeat, Maya thought she’d gotten through.
Twenty-five years of training rushed in to fill the cracks in the wall. Maya watched her oldest friend slip beyond reach. “Simon was a traitor.” Cara’s voice held a shivering intensity, as if making up for the momentary lapse. “He betrayed you as much as Birgitte did. If they’d cared about you at all, they wouldn’t have dragged you into their treason.”
“It’s not treason if the people don’t deserve your trust and loyalty to begin with. Look what they did to you. Ripped you from your parents. Fucked around with your brain. Gave you to a monster to raise—”
“He is not a monster,” Cara snapped.
“You know his secrets. You know all the terrible things he’s done.”
“To protect everyone! Honestly, Maya, the world nearly ended. The entire Southeast was on the verge of starvation. Someone has to enforce order. Someone has to do the horrible things so the rest of us can live our lives.” Cara leaned forward, her brown eyes burning with the fire of a true believer. “Birgitte always hated him. She was jealous of his power. But she couldn’t have made the hard calls that keep us all safe.”
Us. Maya clenched her jaw, knowing better than to argue. Cara had never come down from her sheltered tower and walked the streets of Southside. She didn’t know that safe ended at the base of the Hill, and for most of Atlanta—hell, most of the Southeast—the only safety to be had was what you and your neighbors could scrape together. Not because of the TechCorps, but in spite of them.
Cara wouldn’t believe it without seeing it. She might not even believe it if she saw it. There were a dozen excuses for people’s poor circumstances, and the TechCorps had practically set the litany of blame-passing to music.
“Fine,” Maya ground out. “It was nice catching up. Love that smoky eye, and your boots are killer. Now run along and get Daddy so we can start the torture.”
Oh, it was like kicking a puppy. All shock and big wounded eyes, and Maya wondered for a moment if Cara was going to cry. But she just reached out again, her hand hovering by Maya’s cheek. “Don’t make us do this. We don’t want to hurt you, Maya. We want you back with us, where you belong. You’re our family. You’re my family.”
It was a tragedy because it was true. Cara loved Maya the only way she knew how, with conditional affection and unspoken threats of violence. For so many years, that had been enough. Maya hadn’t known that love could come without ultimatums or threats until she met Nina and Dani.
And now she had Gray. Gray who would destroy himself before he hurt her.
With quiet sadness, Maya slammed the door on the past. “Thanks, but no thanks. I got a better offer.”
And her family was coming for her this time. Maya just had to hold on.
TECHCORPS INTERNAL EXECUTIVE COMMUNICATION
From: RICHTER, T
To: SKOVGAARD, B
Date: 2067–01–04
Congratulations, Birgitte. Now you can be an executive pain in my ass.
From: SKOVGAARD, B
To: RICHTER, T
Date: 2067–01–04
I certainly intend to be.
TWENTY-FOUR
They didn’t drag Gray far, just to a mostly bare room near the far end of the locked-off hallway. The room was rectangular in shape, roughly three meters by six, with blank, gray walls. A table had been placed in the exact center of the room, flanked by two chairs and a rolling stool.
Gray was seated in one chair, his wrists bound behind him with a zip tie. A second one secured his bindings to a rung on the back of the chair’s frame. The other chair was identical to his, precisely placed at the other end of the table.
Everything about the room was precise, surgical. From the furniture to the harsh, naked lighting overhead, it was all designed to evoke fear. To unsettle.
And the show hadn’t even started yet.
With the basic layout of the room committed to memory, Gray began to look more closely. Finally, he spotted the tiny camera wedged between the pitted tiles of the drop ceiling. No doubt it had audio capabilities, and there were probably more microphones scattered about.
He took a moment to steel himself. At least they hadn’t bashed him in the head on sheer principle. The blow alone could have killed him, and then Maya would have to go up against Richter alone.
Gray stretched his neck and locked away all the panic and dread someone in his precarious position was duty bound to feel. Then he spoke. Calmly, carelessly. “You can let me stew in here, sure. But it won’t work, and you know it.”
He silently counted off the seconds. After precisely sixty, the door opened, and Tobias Richter walked in, flanked by two guards. As the guards took up their blank-eyed posts on either side of the door, Gray studied Richter.
He looked so normal. He wore black slacks, a white dress shirt, and a silver-on-silver tie woven with a delicate paisley pattern. Somewhere outside this room, he’d already discarded his jacket. His auburn hair had been neatly trimmed into a conservative executive style, framing a nondescript but pleasant face and piercing blue eyes.
Average height. Medium build. You’d never guess that he could—and did—routinely murder people with his bare hands.
Those deadly hands now carried a titanium hardside case. Gray tried not to look at it as Richter spoke.
“That’s what I always liked about you, Sergeant Gray. You’re indomitable. Unflinching. Brave to the point of foolhardiness.”
He even sounded pleasant, and a genial, real smile curved his lips. And why not? He had the upper hand and was well on his way to turning that advantage into his best day ever.
“However.” He set the case on the table. “While I have historically admired those qualities, they are, at the moment, incredibly inconvenient for me.”
“How tragic.”
Richter’s eyes tightened, and his smile vanished. “Do you know why I’m here, Sergeant—?”
“Gray.”
“Pardon?”
“Just Gray. I’m not a sergeant anymore.”
“An understandable misconception.” Richter smiled again. This time, it completely lacked any warmth or sincerity. “But you are still a Protectorate sergeant. You will be one until you’re promoted, demoted, or dead.”
It wasn’t a threat, merely a statement of fact. It brushed against that secret fear, the idea that Gray would never be rid of them. That the Protectorate was more than his past, present, and future; it was part of him, like his blood and his bones and the goddamn implant in his head.
“Now.” Richter said it like, that’s settled, moving on. He used his palm to release the biometric lock on the case, but he didn’t open it. Instead, he sat down on the rolling stool close to Gray’s position. “Do you know why I’m here?”